GH2 official discussion thread

grimepoch said:
Since the GH2 is more a consumer camera, maybe they are letting regular users use it to get feedback from a non-professional standpoint? I see that AF-100 ending up in professional hands for a few hours at a time for testing. Both cases, Panasonic has allowed some footage to be shown. Given the consumer market is probably MUCH BIGGER than the professional market in terms of selling GH2s.
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Consumers and pros have one thing in common, we all aspire for a product that delivers the best results. Also, this black and white version of "user community" as viewed through a marketing prism is missing quite a few shades, IMHO.

In any event, from the product launch perspective Jan over in the pro forum said it best.
Jan_Crittenden said:
Trust me, I have lived through too many camera intros where the early footage undermined the first 6 months of sales. Thank you all for understanding and not BBQing Joe.

Thanks for understanding,

Jan
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What are considered best results depends on the end user though, it a very open ended phrase.

I think visual quality would rank alot higher for professional over ease of use and convienance, which are what consumers desire more in general speaking terms.

Still Panasonic is falling in their marketing, as the GH series really does compete well in the semi-professional department, and exceeds camera stalwarts Canon and Nikon in many aspects, especially videography.



I've got an idea, since so many us are aspiring film makers, why not have a GH2 TV ad competition. We as end users are far more aware than marketing departments what is desirable to our userbase. Plus it'd be alot of fun :)
 
Dazza said:
Still Panasonic is falling in their marketing, as the GH series really does compete well in the semi-professional department, and exceeds camera stalwarts Canon and Nikon in many aspects, especially videography.
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What Panasonic recently really does not seem to understand about it's own standing is: With the GH1 it had introduced a product that would play in different fields altogether. It had produced what was not expected to a certain degree and what had it's own dynamic (Vitaliy-sation included). It had a product with an "aura". The small-cam nobody expected to do better in some ways - especially video - than the chunky and much more expensive Canons.

Instead of taking this momentum and prolonging it into an "open platform" product, they now try to reign it in certain ways. If in the end really true, this seems to be a pure and simplistic and simpleton's management decision straight from the green table. The GH2 seems to have in certain ways all qualities to be a great and really breathtaking product. But it also looks like something, where some people tried to stuff the genie back into the bottle. And now the product looks..... beautiful but a bit constipated.... ;-)

It seems to have build in restrictions which are in itself so incomprehensible that one would think the chief marketing guys work secretly for Canon or Sony. If the camera comes only with the specs as reported it will lose ground - especially for PAL-people - in the "grey market" of users who stand in the middle between consumer and professional. This is exactly the area where your product - whatever it may be - normally wins it's aura and it's reputation and which gives it the boost of being "special".

And yes: If they should really have given this camera out to some people who shoot this incredibly crappy videos (Dale excluded) they have done about everything wrong one can do wrong in marketing. It's a bit like the people at Alfa Romeo would show us that you really can drive with your Brera to the mall and put a case of beer and a package of diapers in the back..... I rest my case. And wait and hope.
 
I don't know if this has been posted here yet, but here is some footage with a couple of m4/3 lenses. Apart from the interlace hell, the rolling shutter looks very minimal to me.
 
Some seemingly not so good news about taking pictures during video:

In a German forum a guy took this from the Panasonic GH2 features website, which is now offline and not available any more.
There was written, that there are 2 possibilities:

Version 1:
Still Picture Priorities
Seemingly full resolution, (either the resolution you have chosen or 14 MP) but the videos also shows only a still picture for one second and no sound recording during that time.

Up to 8 pictures in total during the video.


Version 2:
Motion Picture Priorities
Up to 30 pictures but only with 2 MP and only JPEG.
Also restricted to 8 pictures during one video-take

Sounds contradicting, bit this is what it said.

But there is one more feature:

In addition, you can copy a number of frames during playback of an HD movie to produce high-quality photos thanks to the Intelligent Resolution technology.

We will see, once the GH2 is available and real life test can be made.
 
Uwe Lansing said:
The images during panning shots don´t look good - its a kind of flickering. I don´t know what it is. With the canons i´ve never seen this behavior with 24p...
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If Panasonic really officially allows people to shoot and distribute such incredibly crappy stuff with a "pre-production" GH2 (Whatever this means) then they would be out of their minds. This looks like someone made rather fast panning with much too long a lens and too short a shutter speed.

I guess this was in reality shot by the Secret Society of Sony-Sisters or the Clandestine Cult of the Canonistas to undermine the new product. Yep - conspiracies wherever we look..... ;-)
 
tipota said:
...This looks like someone made rather fast panning with much too long a lens and too short a shutter speed.
....
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He has shot these scenes with a shutter of 1/50 - that´s ok. But right, the pannings are a bit too fast and perhaps the focal length was too long... I just took a closer look at slower pannings - they seem to be ok. But we have to keep an eye on that...
 
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mpgxsvcd said:
.... Are we sure it is 1080i and not 1080p? I don't see any flickering at all.
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Its 1080p24. Did you watch the downloaded file? Its pretty obvious on the guys white t-shirt at 00:09-00:11. I don´t know how to call it..."flickering" or a kind of "bad interlacing appearances"... As I said before, I´ve never seen it with a canon...
 
Uwe Lansing said:
The images during panning shots don´t look good - its a kind of flickering. I don´t know what it is. With the canons i´ve never seen this behavior with 24p...
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It's quite peculiar. I noticed it on the other 24p footage that's available, and I thought it might have been down to them being 24p, rather than 25p (even though I'm pretty sure that difference isn't visible, lol). If you ask me it resembles film footage though, and it might be because there's less rolling shutter. Actually, now I come to think of it, 24/25p CCD camcorders have this kind of clear judder, too. So maybe it really is down to less rolling shutter.
 
AKED said:
Some seemingly not so good news about taking pictures during video:

In a German forum a guy took this from the Panasonic GH2 features website, which is now offline and not available any more.
There was written, that there are 2 possibilities:
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I think that this had been widely known for long.
He is correct.
You can't shoot still and have smooth video run in same time.
 
btw,
i can't watch the mp4 file on my pc: quicktime, vlc, and free mp4 player won't play...
what do you use?
thanks
 
Uwe Lansing said:
The images during panning shots don´t look good - its a kind of flickering. I don´t know what it is. With the canons i´ve never seen this behavior with 24p...
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Footage from any camera, panned this quickly, will have some degree of "flickering". Additionally, this footage looks like it was shot at fairly high shutter speed. I see in the comments author talking about 1/50 sec shutter. But there is no motion blur between frames whatsoever.

Edit: there seems to be discussion of two recently posted clips. Above comments are regarding "Lumix GH2 - 1080/24p Raw Clip Sample"
 
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svecher said:
Footage from any camera, panned this quickly, will have some degree of "flickering". Additionally, this footage looks like it was shot at fairly high shutter speed. I see in the comments author talking about 1/50 sec shutter. But there is no motion blur between frames whatsoever.
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I am not sure that I want to really discuss material where someone takes one lousy shot waving the camera from a window down onto a run-down tourist place and shout's "my pre-production-GH2 did lay a golden egg".

I am very critical of some of Panasonic's probable decisions about the GH2 if it really should come with the specs as recently advertised...... but really, somebody give us a break, please: This comes down as having the same predictive qualities as reading the innards of a dead fish.
 
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